Lacan and Education Policy

Lacan and Education Policy

by Matthew Clarke (Author), Matthew Clarke (Author)

Synopsis

Lacan and Education Policy draws on the rich conceptual resources of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Using Lacan's four discourses Matthew Clarke offers a sophisticated critique of recent education policy and the neoliberal model of political economy within which it sits, including the ways in which education has been diminished and trivialised through the economistic and depoliticising moves of policy. Clarke articulates possibilities for thinking differently about education and education policy beyond the reductive narratives of neoliberalism. He argues that psychoanalytic theory is valuable, not so much for allowing us to see what education `really is', but for offering insights into what prevents education from `being', enabling us to shift our focus instead into the possibilities education offers as a space of `becoming'. The book suggests possibilities for conceptualising and creating `the other side' of education.

$181.70

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 13 Jun 2019

ISBN 10: 1350070556
ISBN 13: 9781350070554
Book Overview: Offers new perspectives on education policy using Lacanian psychoanalytic theory.

Media Reviews
Matthew Clarke's book brings a new and devastating critical perspective to bear on education policy. His use of Lacan to address fundamental questions about what education has become in the context of neoliberalism enables us to begin to think creatively and with integrity about `the other side of education'. This is a telling and timely book that skilfully deploys psychoanalytic insights to unpack the fantasies that haunt and inhibit education policy - it is exciting, challenging and important! * Stephen Ball, Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology of Education, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK *
It is one of the horrifying ironies of our time that the dominance of university discourse would entail with it the death of education. This is but one of the incredible paradoxes that Matthew Clarke uncovers in his revolutionary Lacan and Education Policy: The Other Side of Education. By bringing psychoanalytic theory to bear on education policy, Clarke reveals that what appears as attention to education is actually nothing but the thorough imposition of the logic of capitalism on all our systems of learning. Calls for more education disguise the desire for more sites of accumulation. Packed with such insights, Lacan and Education Policy completely changes the deal for thinking about how we have been educating. * Todd McGowan, Professor, The University of Vermont, USA *
Author Bio
Matthew Clarke is Chair in Education at York St John University, UK. He is the author of Teacher Education and the Political (2017) and co-editor of Education Policy and Contemporary Theory (2015).